MANILA, Philippines — After Malacañang announced that it was looking into letting more foreign workers in for its flagship projects, Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday urged the government to prioritize hiring Filipinos instead.
"Hire Filipinos first... millions of Filipinos lost their livelihoods and are hungry right now. Hundreds of thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are returning to the country with no jobs. Let's put them first," she said in a mix of Filipino and English.
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Hontiveros in her statement called on the government to survey the population for its skills and to match them with its projects.
"We need to match skills to available and future jobs. The government has to step in as one of our major employers through its flagship projects while we are in crisis," she said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that an additional five million Filipinos were left jobless by the COVID-19 pandemic and government-initiated lockdowns in April.
In absolute terms, movement restrictions threw 7.3 million Filipinos out of their workplace during the survey period, up from 2.3 million a year ago, PSA data showed.
Hontiveros advocated for the skills of a great number of these unemployed workers. She emphasized in Filipino that "among the returning OFWs alone, many are health workers, engineers, architects and more."
The senator added that the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the economic cluster of the Cabinet should "quickly put together a masterplan that will generate new sources of employment and new investments that will be ready to replace those that have been lost."
She particularly highlighted investments in industries such as information and communication technology, agriculture, food manufacturing, the health sector, and urban-rural transport networks.
The government in March suspended the visa-free privileges of foreigners in an effort to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected over 30,000 people in the Philippines.
Currently, only accredited foreign government and international organization officials and their dependents; and foreign spouses and children of Filipino nationals are exempted from the restriction.
However, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Monday said the government will look into proposals to allow foreigners working on state flagship projects to come to the country.
He said an embassy requested for a report on visa holders performing work for flagship projects, permanent residents, retirees and special investors. Roque declined to identify which foreign government made the request.
"It is now being discussed. This was brought up by Secretary Meynard (Guevarra) of DOJ (Department of Justice) last Friday," he said said at a press briefing. — with reports from Prinz Magtulis